[one-more-minute]

Monotropism is compelling for all the reasons the author gives, but it isn't without any loose ends. For example, stimming is a characteristic feature of autism; the authors of the original paper briefly describe it as a focus on activity, but people often fidget to help them focus on something else (eg reading or listening), so it's unclear how that fits with the theory. The same goes for other common experiences like meltdowns, shutdowns and autistic burnout, as well as the higher incidence of alexithymia, queerness, and issues of anxiety and depression, which aren't obviously related to narrow focus.

Very possibly the "autistic"/"allistic" labels refer to a mix of different underlying cognitive variables, monotropism being just one. Either way, the theory seems an important step forward.

[silvestrov]

I think stimming is a bit like listening to music while coding: When you've heard the song a thousand times before it does not take much brain power to listen to it again and it provides an emotional safety by shutting out unwanted external stimuli.

Stimming is doing well known things that doesn't take much attention but also provides emotional safe feeling.